Slight Reprise is a 55-second instrumental. All theories about its deep meaning and reason for existence gratefully accepted. Anyway, I left the easiest until last, and that finishes off Trouble Over Bridgwater, still for me not only the finest album title in HMHB’s discography, but one of the best titles by anyone, ever.
At this stage, we’ve also completed Achtung Bono, Cammell Laird Social Club, CSI: Ambleside, Editor’s Recommendation EP, Eno Collaboration EP, Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral, McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt and Saucy Haulage Ballads. I’d say that from all those songs, there are fewer than half a dozen lines or words which nobody seems sure about, and no more than a dozen or so which remain at all contentious, so we’re not doing badly. Mind you, with revelations like the handwritten lyrics to Joy Division Oven Gloves revising our consensus on the first line of a much loved song, who knows what surprises are still in store between now and the voyage to the bottom of the road?
Mr Larrington
I’m sure there should be a in there somewhere 😉
1 September 2009
Charles Exford
Reason for existence: pisstake of the pretentious idea of the instrumental reprise, e.g.by Oasis on their third album, 1998 ish, called something like “Look Here Now we are Dinosaurs” or some such gubbins.
“Slight reprise” is often used in describing symphonies, operas, shows, etc., and doubtless the Jimi Hendrix ensemble were so stoned that they ended up with “Slight Return” instead.
Deep meaning: none.
2 September 2009
Norbert D
“Trouble Over Bridgwater, still for me not only the finest album title in HMHB’s discography, but one of the best titles by anyone, ever.”
Except that it had already been done.
2 March 2010
dagenham dave
I’ve just had a look at that link, I reckon it’s going to give me nightmares !
2 March 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Wow, I’d never heard of that before. I wonder if that was the case with NB57? I haven’t seen any doffing of the cap to the “Scrumpy & Western Troubadour“
3 March 2010
Norbert D
It’s easy to believe that he’d have heard, or at least heard of, that LP. Not so easy to believe he’d nick a title like that. For a line in a song, yeah. An LP title – I dunno, doesn’t seem like his style to do that, and besides, it’s not like he’s short of good titles. Maybe great minds just think alike.
3 March 2010
Peter Gandy
Fantastic titles on that album too: ‘Dead Dog Scrumpy’, ‘I Like Bananas’, and didn’t someone mention ‘Tavistock Goosey Fair’ in the discussion of ‘Totnes Bickering Fair’?
3 March 2010
Bonnevilleinbits
“A Pub With No Beards ” is pretty good too.
4 March 2010
Charles Exford
Thanks for the revelations about Crozier’s album, etc., everyone.
And just when I got me to a-thinkin that “Tavistock Goosey Fair” must be a trad arr. tune, up googles this thread to tell me the lyrics are (c) C. John Trythall, 1912
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4976&messages=27
Note the ‘original’ lyrics two thirds of the way down the thread (wheras the lyrics one third of the way down the thread seem to be a more recent version, remembered and written down by someone else ), with their ‘orrible attempt to transcribe the Devon accent. I suppose this could still have been Mr. Trythall’s version of a trad arr., especially if he was a folk song collector.
Anyway, ‘ere it be sung in stripped-down scrumpycore-style, courtesy of the British Library:
http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=025M-C1002X0090XX-4000V0.xml
Tune not dissimilar to Lord Hereford’s Knob …but then nor are most English folk song tunes I suppose !
4 March 2010
Dave Betts
What are Trevor Crozier’s ‘Friends’ like? Is he a known quantity in Bridgwater? So many questions based on a single photo.
I hope the curse of HMHB hasn’t struck…
4 March 2010
Charles Exford
Following on from Norbert’s revelation (see above) last year, a friend of mine has been doing some research. Trevor Crozier sings the song called ‘Trouble Over Bridgwater’ on the 1976 live album of that name, as we have seen above, but the song was written by the organiser of the folk club at which it, and the album, were recorded. His name is Joe Beard, formerly of 60s psychedelic jug band “The Purple Gang”. It was a novelty song (in Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band style apparently), about a jilted Royal Flying Corps pilot dropping nasty things from his biplane onto his ex’s wedding barbecue in Bridgwater.
Joe told my mate that the song was offered to the actor Terry Thomas as a potential novelty hit, and when that never came to pass, Joe and his mates helped Trevor Crozier perform it on the album mentioned above, a live record consisting largely of covers (“I like Bananas”, for example, is an old music hall number done in the 30s by George Formby among others). One of Trevor’s originals on the album is “Don’t tell I, tell ‘ee”, but even that was co-written with Adge Cutler, founding father of The Wurzels, who died just before his group found their huge 70s fame.
Joe, the writer, has sent my mate the lyrics to “Trouble Over Bridgwater”, but he (Joe) only had the LP and no cassette facilities, so still neither of us has actually heard the song. A white label copy of the LP was for sale on eBay at £30 as of about a week ago, but neither of us could afford that tidy sum just to satisfy our curiosity. And Trevor Crozier died in Malawi, 3 decades ago I think, so we’ll never hear his version of the story.
But the point is that creative minds often think alike. NB57 couldn’t know that the title had already been used for this obscure “Live at Poynton Folk Club” record, and nor could the mate of his on the Wirral from whom, Nigel told me once, he got the idea in the first place. “Trouble Over Bridgwater” has no doubt been dreamt up as an ‘original’ joke title by many other people over the years, just as “CSI Wherever” has too, and it seems that more than one of them actually got round to using this one as a title.
28 March 2011
Dr Desperate
Those lyrics by Chris Joe Beard, for anyone who might be interested, have also been posted on mudcat:
INTRO
My Emily was so good to me, but now she’s gone forever
She’s run off with that cad young Smytheley-Jones
And now I see them everywhere; it seems I’m just forgotten
They pass me with their noses in the air.
VERSE 1
But since she’s gone I’ve spent my time feeling rather rotten
I’ll take my Sopwith Camel for a spin
And tonight I’m flying dangerously, a mission of the heart
And over Smytheley-Jones’s barbeque.
CHORUS
And there’ll be trouble over Bridgwater tonight
There’s bound to be a beastly row alright
There’ll be hell to pay for sure, when I drop the horse manure
All over Smytheley-Jones tonight.
VERSE 2
The vicar will be at the do and so will all the gentry
What a spiffing wheeze, I’m bound to say
They can’t afford a scandal on their wedding day
It’s about time that he got one in the eye.
I’ve a sack of old hen feathers and 20 bags of flour
I’ll show those stuffy bounders how to fly
And I’ve other scores to settle with young Smytheley-Jones
The rotter’s got it coming. Chocks away!
(Key of G, jug band style; chords are GEmA7D7…GD7CGEmA7D…GD7GG7CGCGFsharpFEA7D7G…chorus)
© Chris Joe Beard
20 February 2014
CHARLES EXFORD
Yep, when I said “think alike” and “creative” I was being generous and certainly not referring to anything more than the shared title.
20 February 2014
chris joe beard
(Yes, the Chris Joe Beard – Ed)
I got the title from the late Bob Barrett of One Up Records who produced the album. He was telling us in the bar of Poynton Folk Centre (pre recording – June 1977 I think – with Trevor Crozier and me) about the old girl in Bridgwater who had gone into a record shop to buy the Simon and Garfunkel hit and simply got it wrong. It seemed a good idea to do a tale about the RFC etc…
I did a similar recording about the RFC subject for Purple Gang’s 1968 “lost” single “Kiss Me Goodnight Sally Green”. I visit the Somme regularly and helped start up the Lancs and Cheshire branch of The Western Front Association.
12 April 2014
Lord leominster
I was disappointed and saddened to see Slight Reprise finish rock bottom of the 2019 Baguette Dilemma round with only 222 wins out of 3,814 plays. I voted for it many times. This tune is magnificent! The voting is a travesty! Wake up, people!
13 February 2020